About “Oceans”

In a video preview Jay explains the meaning behind the song. “It sounds like a celebration of where we are now on some big yacht, throwing champagne in the water,” he tells Rick Rubin. “But the undertow of the thing is that this is the same water that brought us here originally as slaves, so it has this whole duality and even how we re-write history, the stories we were told about the history of America.”

Was this supposed to be on Watch The Throne?

[There were] no lyrics on “Holy Grail” and I recorded “Oceans” and I played those records for Kanye. And he was like, ‘No those have to go on Watch the Throne,’ so we spent four days arguing about those records and I was explaining to him why it wasn’t right for this project and I had a whole idea for making this album called Magna Carta… Holy Grail [part of] the name came after."

What have the artists said about the song?

It’s like me now, everywhere I go in life, and the things that I accomplish, you know when I walk in that room your past still come in with you. You know, people talk ‘Oh that guys, that’s the dealer from the projects,’ then back again to that duality. It sounds like a celebration of you know where we are now, on some big yacht throwing champagne on the water, but the undertow is this same water is the water that brought us here as slaves, so it has this whole duality as slaves, and how we are re-writing history, you know the stories that we were told about the history of America.